In addition to what Cypressdome said, I could quote the openings of both Brahms' Clarinet Quintet and 4th Symphony as some of the most beautiful melodies ever written (thus invalidating your claim that he couldn't write a decent melody) - and Schumann's Heine-songs as examples of some of the most intelligent and craftfully realized interactions between word and music. Schumann was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, rather than an "idiot".

Is there anything much in this forum about what is overrated etc? There is more discussion about whether the forum should stand than anything...on that grounds it should be scrapped. In MHO, JSBach is underrated!

Gosh! I am astonished at the caning Schumann and Brahms have taken here recently, with very poor arguments being used to back the assertions that they are bad composers. I gave up years ago trying to determine what composers are great, and what ones are merely good, and what ones mediocre. It would end up just being a statement about what composers I personally like a lot, what ones I like moderately, and so on. If I wanted to comment on that, I would just say they are composers I like or don't like, and try to explain why - not make an unsubstantiated statement about their worth in absolute terms. But there are so many composers I like a lot that I cannot single out just a few favourites. If I did force myself to single out a few, they would very likely be mainly composers I have paid attention to recently, and so my favourite composers might change from year to year. Schumann and Brahms would probably not often appear on my list of very favourite composers, although I do like many of their works, and think they are both very good composers: clearly they do appeal to many, many people, and, as a musician, I can see technical skill of a high order in their work. (There are dozens, probably hundreds, of composers, though, of whom I would say this.) Now I am going to be quite controversial, although I hope not in a prejudiced or opinionated way: I do not especially like the works of either Bach or Mozart. Now, I am certainly not intending to go even within light years of asserting that they are mediocre composers, since I can see that their skill was of a very high order in world terms. It's just that, presumably for reasons relating to my personal temperament, their music just doesn't speak to me all that strongly. So my failure to see anything truly enthralling in their music is probably saying a lot more about my own limitations in appreciating music than about those composers' music itself. I think I have quite a broad range of composers I like, at least from over the last couple of centuries, yet I'm sure that, like everyone, there are certain limitations in what I can appreciate. I suspect there are very few people who truly like *all* music, without exception. I admit that I have difficulties generally with Baroque and earlier music - but since it would be arrogant for me to claim a whole period of music is inferior, it is clear that this is simply a limitation in myself. If someone says that so-and-so is a poor composer, asserting it like a statement of fact, then I think that is a very questionable thing, and probably not very helpful. But if someone says that so-and-so just doesn't speak very effectively to them, then that is something surely no-one can argue with. For what it's worth, the music that has most excited me was Beethoven in my childhood, then, as I grew older, my interests seemed to gradually move forwards, and I am probably now most interested in those composers from the late 19th century to the mid 20th, or thereabouts - late romanticism, impressionism, early modernism - but there are many, many composers outside that period that also interest me.